Base Rock/live Rock And Sand Ratio
- Thread starter ltt83
- Start date
Dont worry about livesand, just get some aragonite based stuff, all sand becomes live after a bit anyway, you need as much live rock as possible, im not a fan at all of base rock, it wont become live and is effectively useless, you can get 50/50 live rock and reef bones which is dried up live rock.
Depends on what part of the world you are in.
Base Rock and reef bones have the same meaning here. Lace rock is man made and can cause leeching of certain metals into systems.
The LR on the market has typically spent long periods out of water by ht etime it hits the wholesalers so most of the anerobes are dead. Once they have left the rock, they will not return.
As for filtration the best cheapest solution is to get coral skeleton rock. This is rock that arrived at the wholesalers as a coral, but the coral died and they threw the rock in a bin. Why is it better, because it has never been removed from the water leaving all the 02 hating bacterias intact inside the rock.
JMO
Base Rock and reef bones have the same meaning here. Lace rock is man made and can cause leeching of certain metals into systems.
The LR on the market has typically spent long periods out of water by ht etime it hits the wholesalers so most of the anerobes are dead. Once they have left the rock, they will not return.
As for filtration the best cheapest solution is to get coral skeleton rock. This is rock that arrived at the wholesalers as a coral, but the coral died and they threw the rock in a bin. Why is it better, because it has never been removed from the water leaving all the 02 hating bacterias intact inside the rock.
JMO
Aquascaper
Fish Aficionado
While it is true that live rock spends a considerable amount of time out of water between the sea and the LFS the bacterial colonies will always regenerate. The bacteria left on the live rock (and there will always be some as live rock never totally dries out unless deliberately left in the sun to create 'reef bones') will feed on the decaying bacteria and other organisms, known as die-off, in a process known as 'curing'.
This is highly dependant on the type of coral. Most corals are predominantly solid calcium and therefore not very porous and not the best filter, they will have bacterial colonies living on the surface but will have little internally. There is no real substitute for live rock as it is nature finest filteration system.
Everything you place in the tank will house bacteria on it, including equipment, so i've always felt that spending money on good live rock is far more important than spending money on live sand. Your substrate will be 'seeded' by the live rock given time but from the start live rock is more beneficial to the system.
If you can, it's better to use only live rock to aquascape the tank but if money is an issue then using reef bones is far better than ocean rock, the more porous the better the filtration once seeded as the surface area is higher.
HTH
Agreed. Cash was a bit of a consideration for me so I used about a 50/50 mix of LR and BR. I was able to find someone local who had long since taken his reef tank down and had is old LR (now dead obviously) sitting in buckets in his garage. He sold it to me really cheap at $1/lb so I saved lots of money that way. I have to go really slow in stocking obviously, but thats ok as I dont have tremendous amounts of spare time anyways
. If you want to pursue the baserock option, ask around with the fish guys at your LFS, they may know people who have old LR sitting around.We are speaking of different bacteria I believe. the bacteria on the rock will always regenerate. I am speaking of the 02 hating bacteria within the rock. During the process in which the rock is collected the benificial bacteria inside of the rock will die. It will not be regenerated as there is nothing left of it to regenerate. The bacteria on the surface of the rock will regenerate, the anerobes that go deep into the rock to avoid the 02 present at the surface will not. This information comes from Walt Smith.
This is highly dependant on the type of coral. Most corals are predominantly solid calcium and therefore not very porous and not the best filter, they will have bacterial colonies living on the surface but will have little internally. There is no real substitute for live rock as it is nature finest filteration system.
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Maybe I wasn't clear, there has been a misunderstanding. I do not think the dead coral skeletons themselves are good for the biological filtration, I am reffering to the rock they come on. Say a colony f mushrooms is shipped from Fiji.The mushrooms die in a holding tank, the rock is placed a seperate bin from the other rock. At the whole salers they label it coral skeleton rock, becuase sometimes you can see the existing skeleton of a dead coral.
It is my belief that this rock is the best you can buy because it was never removed from the water lon enough for the anerobes to die.
There are several people who have done research on the different bacteria colonies in LR. If your intrested you can look into Dr Ron's research or even Leng Sy.
Aquascaper
Fish Aficionado
Due to the imensely porous nature of live rock, water is locked deep inside the rock even during shipping and therefore the Nitrogen fixing bacteria (Anerobes) survive whereas Bacillus, Nitrosococcus and Nitrococcus bacteria living on the surface and open areas of the rock will gradually die-off. The only way to kill the Nitrogen fixing bacteria off if to completely dry the live rock out..................If you're LFS is selling completely dry rock as live rock then I suggest you buy from another source as they are ripping you off with 'reef bones'
As a side not - If it is impossible for anerobes to recolonise live rock then how do explain the colonisation of DSB's or the creation of anerobic zones in inert substrate compressed under rock?
Agreed. While the bacteria present in the center of live rock are anaerobic and cannot function in the presence of oxygen, they can survive for short periods of exposure to an oxygen rich environment. How long they can resist O2 before they die is an issue I'm not qualified to answer, but think of it this way... At some point, the pieces of liverock we use in our aquariums was formed by various calcerous growing sea creatures. When the rocks are formed, they of course have no bacteria in them to start. Then at some point, the deeper regions of that rock were colonized by anaerobic dentrifiers... They had to move through an O2 rich environment to get there didnt they? They didn't just magically appear there .
.How long can the anaerobes survive out of water is a very good question. Often times before the LR gets to it's first destination here in L.A it has been out of water for three to four days. Then the boxes are stacked at the wholesalers. If it is slow, they are put in to tanks the same day. If it is busy it could take a day or two or three, or a week. Then the rock is taken out of the boxes and placed in LR only tanks. These tanks are on there own systems and not fed anything to keep the bacteria's alive.
That's only for those lucky enough to live here in L.A. For the rest of you after the liverock is delivered here, it is sent ground to other wholesalers are LFS's directly from the wholesaler here. That adds another 4 to 5 days out of water.
How often do you think the wholesalers get in new liverock. Well there was a shipment the first week of Dec, then the next one to the U.S. was the first week of Feb, thee has not been another one since. So if your LFS bought LR in late Jan, it was LR that was left to dry for a few days, then placed in a tank for months with no food for the bacteria to consume to stay "live". The next question is also a good one, how long did it sit in your LFS's tank for before they sold it? Is it ina seperate system there as well? Is it fed anything to stay alive?
Theoretically it is possible for the anaerobes to recolonize the core of the LR. Theoretically many things are possible. The recolonization of the anaerobes in the core of the rock just doesn't happen. The best example of this was a study I saw where a piece of dead rock, a piece of Fiji LR, and a piece of rock that was shipped with a coral that later died, were all put into a 120g full reef for three years. They were all in the same tank, they all under went the same conditions. After learning of this theory on LR the scientist took the rocks out, and broke them in half studying the core of the rock with high power microscopes. He saw that the dead rock, had no anaerobes in it's core. The traditional LR, had very little, I believe he used, insignificant amounts, while the rock that came with the coral had full populations.
As he studied the rock further he found that only the surface of the dead rock had grown any type of aerobes bacteria.
This is the really intresting part, the traditional live rock seemed to have a hard layer towards the middle of the rock. His theory was that as the rock was drying the aerobe bacterias retreated with the water towards the center of the rock. Here they mixed with the anaerobes and eventually both colonies died. The hard layer was formed whne the bacteria's died. He believed that when the bacterias died in the rock they clogged the pores of the rock which blocked any future development of the anearobic bacteria. He went on to explain that when the rock is reintorduced into a marine system that the aerobes colonize the surface of the rock so quickly it would make it impossible for the anearobic bacterias to ever get back to the cores of the rock.
In testing the rock that formerly housed corals, he was able to fing huge populations of anaerobes and noticed that the evidene of clogged pores was not present. This is consistent with the rest of the theory becuase these rocks are never removed from water during shipping.
The point you bring up about the anerobic bacteria in the sandbed is a good one, and the next step in the study. Since the theory was shared there is a different scientist who is in the mind state of you guys that the anearobic bacteria could recolonize the core of LR that he is repeating the study, but also burying some pieces of all the types of rock in a DSB to see if a different environment will change the original findings. Unfortanetly we won't get any ifo out of him until IMAC 2007. These kind of studies take time. He is only doing a year I believe.
Anyways it is all intresting to me.
I still think that common sense tells me that if I can buy a piece of LR for $.50 a lbs that has never been out of water, or buy a piece of LR for $3.98 a lbs that has spent extended time out of water, that I would want the cheaper one, if nothing else but to save the $3.48 a lbs for the same type of rock. JMO.
That's only for those lucky enough to live here in L.A. For the rest of you after the liverock is delivered here, it is sent ground to other wholesalers are LFS's directly from the wholesaler here. That adds another 4 to 5 days out of water.
How often do you think the wholesalers get in new liverock. Well there was a shipment the first week of Dec, then the next one to the U.S. was the first week of Feb, thee has not been another one since. So if your LFS bought LR in late Jan, it was LR that was left to dry for a few days, then placed in a tank for months with no food for the bacteria to consume to stay "live". The next question is also a good one, how long did it sit in your LFS's tank for before they sold it? Is it ina seperate system there as well? Is it fed anything to stay alive?
Theoretically it is possible for the anaerobes to recolonize the core of the LR. Theoretically many things are possible. The recolonization of the anaerobes in the core of the rock just doesn't happen. The best example of this was a study I saw where a piece of dead rock, a piece of Fiji LR, and a piece of rock that was shipped with a coral that later died, were all put into a 120g full reef for three years. They were all in the same tank, they all under went the same conditions. After learning of this theory on LR the scientist took the rocks out, and broke them in half studying the core of the rock with high power microscopes. He saw that the dead rock, had no anaerobes in it's core. The traditional LR, had very little, I believe he used, insignificant amounts, while the rock that came with the coral had full populations.
As he studied the rock further he found that only the surface of the dead rock had grown any type of aerobes bacteria.
This is the really intresting part, the traditional live rock seemed to have a hard layer towards the middle of the rock. His theory was that as the rock was drying the aerobe bacterias retreated with the water towards the center of the rock. Here they mixed with the anaerobes and eventually both colonies died. The hard layer was formed whne the bacteria's died. He believed that when the bacterias died in the rock they clogged the pores of the rock which blocked any future development of the anearobic bacteria. He went on to explain that when the rock is reintorduced into a marine system that the aerobes colonize the surface of the rock so quickly it would make it impossible for the anearobic bacterias to ever get back to the cores of the rock.
In testing the rock that formerly housed corals, he was able to fing huge populations of anaerobes and noticed that the evidene of clogged pores was not present. This is consistent with the rest of the theory becuase these rocks are never removed from water during shipping.
The point you bring up about the anerobic bacteria in the sandbed is a good one, and the next step in the study. Since the theory was shared there is a different scientist who is in the mind state of you guys that the anearobic bacteria could recolonize the core of LR that he is repeating the study, but also burying some pieces of all the types of rock in a DSB to see if a different environment will change the original findings. Unfortanetly we won't get any ifo out of him until IMAC 2007. These kind of studies take time. He is only doing a year I believe.
Anyways it is all intresting to me.
I still think that common sense tells me that if I can buy a piece of LR for $.50 a lbs that has never been out of water, or buy a piece of LR for $3.98 a lbs that has spent extended time out of water, that I would want the cheaper one, if nothing else but to save the $3.48 a lbs for the same type of rock. JMO.
Aquascaper
Fish Aficionado
Live rock shipping in the US sucks then as in the UK they ship direct from the place where it is harvested along with the fish.
The rock is collected and stored in vats of seawater with circulating pumps, etc. until an order is placed. The rock is then boxed and shipped the same day to arrive in the UK LFS within 3 days where it is placed into a curing tank for 6 weeks before resale. This is information straight from my LFS who deals direct with traders from Fiji, Mexico and a variety of Caribbean locations. As my 120g reef tank was filled with 85kgs of live rock, mostly from him, and I did two water changes in 12 months with no Nitrate problems in between I am inclined to believe that the rock is fresh and healthy.
Buying small pieces of live rock that have had corals on them is a wonderful idea but what happens when you want to fill a large tank? I have never come across a coral on a piece of live rock bigger than my hand so it would be impossible to find the large chunks like I have with which I built my reef, my largest single piece being in excess of 9kg.
IMO a single experiment by a single person using 3 bits of rock lasting 3 years is hardly proof that anerobes cannot recolonise live rock
The rock is collected and stored in vats of seawater with circulating pumps, etc. until an order is placed. The rock is then boxed and shipped the same day to arrive in the UK LFS within 3 days where it is placed into a curing tank for 6 weeks before resale. This is information straight from my LFS who deals direct with traders from Fiji, Mexico and a variety of Caribbean locations. As my 120g reef tank was filled with 85kgs of live rock, mostly from him, and I did two water changes in 12 months with no Nitrate problems in between I am inclined to believe that the rock is fresh and healthy.
Buying small pieces of live rock that have had corals on them is a wonderful idea but what happens when you want to fill a large tank? I have never come across a coral on a piece of live rock bigger than my hand so it would be impossible to find the large chunks like I have with which I built my reef, my largest single piece being in excess of 9kg.
IMO a single experiment by a single person using 3 bits of rock lasting 3 years is hardly proof that anerobes cannot recolonise live rock
Yeah that's what I'm saying the LR shipping in the U.S. sucks. Buying traditional liverock is a waste of money. The rock is shipped here from the same place the U.K. gets there rocks. The offical stance of the LFS's here are they get it in three days and then they are on the shelf. No one here sells cured rock.
The LR goes through a wholesaler location before it ever gets to any LFS. There are not many major wholesale locations here in the United States. When you get LR you are getting it from the same place everyone else is. In the U.S. if your LFS owner is telling you they deal directly with collectors they mean they have met then at the wholesalers, or they are lying. Collector's do not sell directly to stores, there are to many rules and regulations in place to make it feesable.
Having accsess to the wholesalers I can tell you what happens there and what is said by the LFS's is very different.
I have about 90 lbs of LR in my display, another 110 lbs or so divided between my sumps and propagation systems. The largest piece of rock I own is 9 lbs. I'm really into soft corals so for me, this is actually easier then having larger pieces. When a soft coral multiplies or a mushroom relocates it is easy for me to remove a small rock to move to a prop tank or to sell. I have my LR on a PVC support structure/spray bar which is hooked up to a Mag3 so even with the smaller pieces of rock, there is still enough flow to go through them. JME.
The LR goes through a wholesaler location before it ever gets to any LFS. There are not many major wholesale locations here in the United States. When you get LR you are getting it from the same place everyone else is. In the U.S. if your LFS owner is telling you they deal directly with collectors they mean they have met then at the wholesalers, or they are lying. Collector's do not sell directly to stores, there are to many rules and regulations in place to make it feesable.
Having accsess to the wholesalers I can tell you what happens there and what is said by the LFS's is very different.
I have about 90 lbs of LR in my display, another 110 lbs or so divided between my sumps and propagation systems. The largest piece of rock I own is 9 lbs. I'm really into soft corals so for me, this is actually easier then having larger pieces. When a soft coral multiplies or a mushroom relocates it is easy for me to remove a small rock to move to a prop tank or to sell. I have my LR on a PVC support structure/spray bar which is hooked up to a Mag3 so even with the smaller pieces of rock, there is still enough flow to go through them. JME.
Aquascaper
Fish Aficionado
If that's how live rock is treated in the US it's no wonder you can buy it for $4 per lb (£2 per lb) whereas we buy ours for around $12 per lb (£7 per lb), 3 times as much
By the sounds of it I guess you get what you pay for though
By the sounds of it I guess you get what you pay for though
Ah hah, you need to get your LR from florida 
Aquascaper
Fish Aficionado
I'd rather get it from my LFS knowing where its come from and how long it took
Getting a plane to Florida, going scuba diving, collecting live rock and then bringing it home is a bit excessive don't you think
Getting a plane to Florida, going scuba diving, collecting live rock and then bringing it home is a bit excessive don't you think
Very excessive. I meant he should buy the aquacultured LR from down there as it doesnt waste any time sitting in warehouses
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